This was on my wishlist and is a typical small-town-America-coming-of-age-novel. Although it had some good lyrical moments and striking images, well, maybe I’ve read too many of these recently. Mad mother leaves kids to fend for themselves – check. Glam but dodgy aunt and her glam but dodgy daughter turn up to help – check. Local characters add menace – check. Icky details here and there – check. So it seemed a bit That Kind Of Book By Numbers, whereas I’m sure someone who had not read so many of them would find it fresher.

This is the first of her Italian adventures and I’ve actually read the 3rd one already – as that is set in a different area, it didn’t spoil the surprise too much, and it was quite jolly knowing that when she mentions a certain guy, he will be her boyfriend by the book after next! It is a jolly book, all told – full of Interesting Capitalisations, which is often how I write, and lots of nice detail. Also, because she and her sister spent years at the place before she wrote (finished?) the book, there is a wealth of ongoing information, backstory and forays into the future, which make it rich and satisfying.

I have the 2nd book on loan from Beckydore and will read that quite soon.

I bought this because I could use it for Never Judge A Book By Its Cover then realised that it’s a battered copy of a book that’s been recently reissued by Persephone and, I seem to remember, read by Ali.

This is lovely. The deceptively simple tale of a South London family off for their annual holiday in Bognor, the detail is beautifully done and we get an interior portrait of the members of the family, their hopes, fears and thoughts. Terribly touching in places, very English, and a completely pleasurable and lovely read.

I will let this rather shabby copy go into an OBCZ so someone can get a read or two out of it, and will put the Persephone version on my wishlist!

Hm. Subtitled “A Novel of Love, Grief and Baking”, this was more a novel of grief, grief and grief. Sophie’s husband is a few months dead when we meet her, and we follow her up to and past the anniversary. I was expecting a Debbie Macombery light read (not to say DM doesn’t talk about issues, but she has a lightness of touch). This was pretty unremitting and the descriptions of the heroine’s depression harrowing. Maybe this wasn’t the right time for me to read this, as there were light and amusing touches, I just couldn’t see them through the gloom.

I picked this travel narrative about the 2002 World Cup up because I liked the author’s “From Balham To Bollywood” about playing cricket in the film “Lagaan” and I like books about Japan. I liked the bits about Japan, but I really couldn’t follow the football narratives and there were a lot of these.

I’m going to register it on BookCrossing to allow someone else to enjoy it!

An odd little book made up of items from a column in The Observer in which Shaw phones numbers on adverts and finds out the stories behind them. Some are sad, some funny, some a bit on the rude side. He has a way of writing which brings out the actual language of the people involved while keeping himself more in the background – a bit like Hunter Davies in his books about lottery winners and other compilations.

While this is a fun, light read, it’s not really a re-read, so I will register it on BookCrossing and see where it ends up!

Well, it’s Gill that’s angry here. Frothing at the gills, even (ha ha). He doesn’t like the English; he’s not one of them, see, being born and having spent a year in Scotland, and he always felt apart from them (read: better than them). He doesn’t like Vita Sackville-West, the Cotswolds, oooh, lots of things. It’s quite amusing as heaps of bile and vitriol go, and I’m going to offer it on a bookray to see what other people think of it!